


The Doctors and Their Hearts

by Doctorinblue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), MASH (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, War, mostly angst tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 06:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16635032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorinblue/pseuds/Doctorinblue
Summary: A blue box lands in the middle of a war





	The Doctors and Their Hearts

He doesn't need to be a Lord of Time to know exactly how long it's been, right down to the second, since Donna stormed out of the console room. As it turns out, love is a good timekeeper all on its own. They'd been soaking wet (his fault) and fighting mad. His too large mouth had all too willingly overflowed his discomfort. He hadn't meant a word of it, of course, and his 'rightful superiority' had rapidly dissolved into sloshy misery.

He'd managed a shower, fumbled beneath the console until the TARDIS had sparked her annoyance a few too many times. He'd flopped onto the jump seat, re-read the same books again and again, but still, Donna hadn't returned.

Until now.

He hears her footsteps draw in closer, and the jump seat rattles as she throws herself onto it beside him. He slowly closes the book, finger marking the page, as if he could actually have been reading with his hearts beating like twin drums in his throat. The coward in him calls for retreat (he can still feel the tension rolling off her and thumping into him). The rest of him, however, the parts that risked everything after losing... Well, the rest of him has never had a choice. He'd always see Donna, always chase her into any version of hell that existed if it meant patching up what he'd been so careless with.

Looking up, he tries for a smile. She ignores it, and him, leaning farther back into the seat, eyes focused on the console. He lets out a slow breath, weighs his options. He could apologize. Again. Probably it wouldn't make any difference. He knows her well enough after all these years, knows that while the hardness of her eyes doesn't suggest forgiveness, the willingness to dress, seek him out counts for something. She could have refused to see him at all, could have slunk from the kitchen and back again until one of them broke first.

Him. Damn his hearts, it would always be him.

He clears his throat, pushes himself to his feet, and adds the book to the stack on the floor. Brushing his hands over the wrinkled bits of his suit, he hopes he doesn't look half as tired as he feels. Or, at the very least, looks as if he wasn't too scared to attempt sleeping all on his own. He hadn't, of course. His skin has been crawling for days, even before the fight. Something aches inside him, bone-deep. Memories claw at his insides, an agony he doesn't know how to express, and no amount of running seems to be easing it.

He just hasn't figured out how to tell Donna just yet.

Whispers of the past, the ones he’s been burying and running from for centuries, are rising in crescendo. He hears the screaming now, and he’s burning, again and again, dying with every breath that proves he’s alive. No one should have to run so far, so fast, not even him. War has scorched a path across his soul, and he will never be free from wounds that should have healed by now.

A hand touches his, squeezes. He jerks his eyes down, the flames rolling away from him until he finally sees her face. Soft and gentle now. _I've got you always._ He hears it, though her mouth doesn't move. His breath is at near pant and something is brewing at the edges of his vision, but he keeps all his focus on Donna. 

"Are you okay?"

"Always," he says, clears his throat.

A lie. They both know it, but it buys him minutes, seconds, to figure out what's falling apart and how to shield Donna from it.

Giving her hand a gentle squeeze, he lets her go, moves away. Fingers on the console, eyes darting to the door. He knows better than to hope. Whatever is coming will come.  
“Where to?” she finally asks, and the tension snaps back on him.

He grips the console a little tighter, before forcing his fingers to release.

“Anywhere you like,” he says, rounding the console. “Your choice. Time and space.”

Another lie. Flipping the switches, pressing buttons, it's all for show. He wonders if she feels the small shuttering beneath her feet, the almost sick, desperate pitch change in the surrounding hum.

"Hold on," he whispers, and she does.

The TARDIS jerks, he grips the console again, and he closes his eyes, certain the TARDIS is screaming inside his skull. Then nothing. Silence. He pulls his eyes open. They've landed. No bones were broken, the lights dim but on in the console room. On the surface, everything is peaceful. Donna looks at him, stands up slowly.

"Doctor?"

"Stay here," he says, walking down to the door. "Please."

And by some miracle, she doesn't argue. She moves closer to the console, closes the gap between them, but goes no farther. His stomach aches, is wound up tightly, and his hearts are beating so fast he imagines he could see cartoon-style outlines of them on his chest if he were to look down. 

He pulls open the door and looks out. Dirt. Green and brown, a faint pink in the sky. Dawn. Tents. A building put together with no hint of permanence. He sees the red-cross, hears a bomb in the distance. The camp seems asleep. No, worse than asleep. He can smell the air, smells...Well, he doesn't want to be here.

He doesn't want Donna to be here.

He's done his part. He's served his role. His life isn't about this anymore, and if he has his way her life never will be. 

He slams the door, presses his hand against the wood. If he can just keep her inside. If he can just keep it outside. If...

"Doctor?"

His fingers curls into the wood, fold down into his palm. He breathes through the next few sentences, leaves best unsaid, unsaid. 

"We don't need to be here," he says. 

It sounds like he's begging, the TARDIS, the universe, anyone. Maybe he is. 

She stays silent, and it's so unlike her that he hates it. Glancing back, he studies her. His friend. His...everything. How does he tell her? How does he tell her that he can't bear another war? That he can't handle the past any more than he can handle the future. He doesn't want her to see it. She's already seen so much. She's already seen too much.

And he's supposed to keep her safe. He's promised. And she's supposed to keep him sane. Whole. 

"We should leave."

He doesn't move. There is nowhere to go. 

"Doctor?" she says again. "What is it?"

Shoving a hand in his pocket, he pulls out the sonic. Flipping through settings, he feels her approach. A shadow and the sun. 

"We're on Earth."

"Okay," she says, stopping beside him. "What's wrong with it, though? Are we in a swamp? On top of a mountain? Did you do that again?"

She doesn't ask why they don't just leave. 

"We're in Korea."

She blinks at him, and he watches her think.

"And?" she finally says.

Carefully. As if she knows the answer. As if she can read him like he can read the timelines. Probably that's accurate. 

"Donna, I'm so sorry."

**DM**

He wakes with a scream against his lips and only just manages to swallow it away before it can signal his growing distress. Instead of giving in to panic, instead of clawing his skin free from its too tight stitches, he grips the sides of his cot and shakes with the effort needed to not implode. Finally, though, finally, his heart begins to slow, and air, however stagnant, can be found in the tent again.

Exhaling slowly, he refuses to participate in another round of guess the nightmare. Even the ones he thinks he can trust, the ones at home, in the past, twist and burn behind his skull until he wakes breathless with fistfuls of ashes of his family. However imaginary. He both burns with them and survives alone to carry alone.

Still, he'd choose burning over blood. Those dreams are too close to home, to his heart. They leave him patting his body, staring into empty palms to ensure he hadn't fallen asleep in surgery- that the blood of boys (babies, really) hasn't actually swelled up to his ankles, knees, drowning him and Korea at last. 

Sitting up the moment he is able, Hawkeye studies BJ's back in the growing light. The sides of the tent are up, and hot air blows across hotter bodies, but it's better than keeping the heat cooped up inside with them. Frank likely wouldn't survive.

He wipes the sweat from his brow - from the heat or from the agony, he can't be sure - and tosses his pillow at BJ's back. BJ groans, shifts. Hawkeye feels something nearing guilt, but he hates tearing BJ away from sleep slightly less than he hates being alone. 

He's always had a cowardly side.

"Go away," BJ mutters. 

"Coffee," Hawkeye suggests. "I hear the powdered eggs are a fine vintage this morning."

The truth is his head is still pounding from last night. No, the truth is he hasn't felt human since he's invaded Korea, and it invaded him in return. They probably still got the rotten end of the deal.

And he's got rounds, whether he wants them or not.

The pillow smacks into the side of his head. He jumps, catches himself and tucks it into his chest. 

"What's that?"

Hawkeye blinks, twist his body to look in the direction that BJ is pointing. He can see it outside. A box. Blue. He nearly says so, but the words run off track between brain and lips.

It's just sitting there, silent and his first thought (would it always be his first thought) involve a bomb and grave possibilities.

"Let's find out," he says, pulling his boots on and lacing them haphazardly. 

BJ's moving too, unwilling to let him go alone. And probably Hawkeye should go wake Colonel Potter first, take a wide path around the unknown object but in the battle of reason and curiosity he'd always had a winning streak towards the latter. 

He steps out, blinks into the sun, and feels the air already warming to a number closer to unreasonable. Stepping outside didn't make the box...well, any less of a box. A police box, he can see from here, based on the writing on the front. Small windows that don't actually shed any light onto the inside contents, a light settled on top. Everything inside him warns that it's a trap, that somehow it's going to explode and take the camp with it.

That would complete his week nicely. 

He takes a step towards it. 

"Don't, Hawk."

He stops and then hears it. A noise, then the door opens.


End file.
